Lake Clark National Park & PreservePage 59 of 114

Counting visitors where there are no gates: Katmai and Lake Clark

Katmai and Lake Clark national parks and preserves have no entrance stations, so the Park Service counts visitors through the commercial operators who bring almost all of them. This 2021 resource brief shows what that count says about where, when and how people visit the two Alaska parks, including the sharp drop in 2020 during the pandemic.

Two bear cubs play on a beach

Bear viewing is the most popular activity at Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. NPS/K. Jalone.

Why count visitors

Knowing visitor patterns across the parks and over time shows managers where to station rangers and staff and where to monitor or reduce impacts such as trampling. The patterns also help commercial operators, such as guides and air taxis, see where and when people go when planning services.

A visitor use day is each day a visitor is in the park doing some activity. Someone who stays several days is counted each day, by where they go and what they do.

Where people visit

Park	What the brief reports
Katmai	Visitor use days reported by businesses have ranged between 25,000 and 37,000 a year, with a sharp drop in 2020 due to the pandemic. Even then, Brooks Camp and Moraine Drainage had more visits than other popular spots. In a normal year, Hallo Bay, Geographic Harbor/Amalik Bay, Kukak Bay and Swikshak Lagoon are among the most visited coastal sites, together over 5,000 visitor use days a year. Year-to-year variation probably follows the timing and size of salmon runs, which draw fishing and bear viewing
Lake Clark	About 6,700 days in 2020, down from almost 20,000 in 2019. Before the pandemic visitation was rising, especially on the Cook Inlet (coastal) side. In 2019, Crescent Lake, Silver Salmon Creek and Chinitna Bay were the most visited, together over 70% of visitation (over 13,000 days). Chinitna Bay grew from over 800 days in 2011 to over 4,600 in 2019

Park

What the brief reports

Katmai

Visitor use days reported by businesses have ranged between 25,000 and 37,000 a year, with a sharp drop in 2020 due to the pandemic. Even then, Brooks Camp and Moraine Drainage had more visits than other popular spots. In a normal year, Hallo Bay, Geographic Harbor/Amalik Bay, Kukak Bay and Swikshak Lagoon are among the most visited coastal sites, together over 5,000 visitor use days a year. Year-to-year variation probably follows the timing and size of salmon runs, which draw fishing and bear viewing

Lake Clark

About 6,700 days in 2020, down from almost 20,000 in 2019. Before the pandemic visitation was rising, especially on the Cook Inlet (coastal) side. In 2019, Crescent Lake, Silver Salmon Creek and Chinitna Bay were the most visited, together over 70% of visitation (over 13,000 days). Chinitna Bay grew from over 800 days in 2011 to over 4,600 in 2019

When people visit

Most Katmai visitation falls in July and August, normally about 70% of visitor use days. At Lake Clark, July and August were also highest despite the drop, but unlike past years June had less visitation than September. In Katmai in 2020, Brooks Camp was closed in June and then received almost 2,000 visitor use days in July, when bear numbers on Brooks River peak. In August, visits spread across other places.

What people do

Katmai: the three main activities reported by operators are sport fishing, bear viewing and air taxi, which overlap. In 2020 sport fishing days fell least.
Lake Clark: the most popular were bear viewing, sport fishing and photography; again sport fishing fell least. Bear viewing was the top activity.
The brief suggests the smaller sport fishing drop may reflect people using deals commercial operators offered when normal summer travel was lost.

Planes, or air taxis, are the main way people reach either park.

How the numbers are collected

Remote Alaska parks have no entrance stations. Some local visitation occurs, but the vast majority of visitors use a lodge, guiding service or air taxi operator. These operators pay a fee for each visitor they bring and report how many visitors, what they do and where they go in the park. Each park is divided into areas roughly matching watersheds, with busy areas subdivided. These reports are the main way the Park Service measures visitation patterns and public use. Park-specific, print-friendly briefs exist for each park.

Sources

National Park Service, "Visitor Use," 2021 resource brief for Katmai and Lake Clark national parks and preserves, https://www.nps.gov/articles/visitor-use.htm. The brief's data charts, whose descriptions did not match their captions, are left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.